Moni's Thoughts On The 20/20 Jenner Interview

I turned it off a Houston Rockets playoff game against the Dallas NBA franchise (that they won) at 8 PM CDT to do what 17 million other Americans did and watched the Bruce Jenner interview.

I had reservations along with many people in Trans World because of the hype and past media fumbles when it comes to covering trans issues how this was going to turn out.  

But as the interview played out over then next two hours with me flipping to the Rockets playoff game during commercial breaks, outside of a few WTF moments, the interview was handled by Diane Sawyer quite well.  

If I had to grade it, I'd give it a B+.   They did a great job of letting Jenner tell her personal story and mixing it with stats and other interviews that  point out just how tough it is to be trans in America.

When it was over, we had an interview on KTRK-TV (ABC13, my local ABC affiliate station) with trans woman Veronika Simms..   Yep I know her, she is one intelligent and obviously attractive woman, and have much love and respect for her.  

While it was an excellent interview, I was bothered by the focus on surgery.  Not everyone can afford $60K in facial feminization surgery or much less GRS.   Some trans women don't feel it's necessary to have genital surgery or can't for medical or fiscal reasons, and that needs to be talked about at some point.

Trans women are women.  Trans men are men.   Gender identity and expression of it is between your ears, not your legs.  We also  need to deal with the realities of trans life like the GOP pushing anti-trans legislation to criminalize our lives, and in 32 states we have no discrimination protections  

That's the reality that many trans women of color deal with, and I hope that while we're in this moment in which America is celebrating Jenner's coming our, the reality is much different for TWOC.